Best 60 laravel interview questions and answers

The latest stable version of Laravel is 11, which was officially released on March 12, 2024.

Composer is a dependency management tool for PHP. It allows you to manage libraries and dependencies required for your Laravel project. Composer simplifies the process of installing, updating, and maintaining third-party libraries, and the configuration is handled through the composer.json file.

Laravel uses the Blade templating engine, which provides an expressive and easy-to-use syntax for creating dynamic web pages. Blade templates are stored in the /resources/views directory and use the .blade.php file extension. Blade supports features like template inheritance, control structures, and custom directives.

Laravel supports multiple database systems, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, and SQL Server. The configuration for these databases is specified in the config/database.php file.

Artisan is the command-line interface (CLI) for Laravel. It provides a range of useful commands for common tasks such as database migrations, seeding, running tests, and more. To view the full list of available Artisan commands, you can run php artisan list.

In Laravel, environment variables are stored in the .env file, which holds sensitive configuration values like database credentials and API keys. This file should never be committed to version control. Laravel uses the Dotenv package to load and manage these environment variables.

Yes, Laravel is a great choice for full-stack development. You can use Blade templates for rendering the frontend, or you can build Single Page Applications (SPAs) using JavaScript frameworks like Vue.js or React. Laravel handles the backend logic, API development, and database management seamlessly.

To enable maintenance mode in Laravel, run the following command: php artisan down. This will temporarily disable your application. To bring it back online, use php artisan up. You can also specify a retry interval with the command php artisan down --retry=60 to set a 60-second delay before the page refreshes.

Laravel defines routes in two primary files:

• routes/web.php - Contains routes for web interfaces, with session state, CSRF protection, and more.
• routes/api.php - Defines stateless API routes, typically used for API development.

Migrations are used to version control your database schema. They allow you to define and share the structure of your database, such as creating and modifying tables. Laravel's migration system works alongside its Schema Builder, making it easy to create and manage database tables using PHP code instead of raw SQL queries.

Seeders in Laravel are used to populate your database with sample or default data. This is particularly useful for testing or development. You can create custom seeders in the database/seeders directory. Each seeder class contains a run method, which is executed when running the php artisan db:seed command.

Laravel factories allow you to generate large amounts of fake data for your application, typically used for testing or database seeding. Factories can be defined for Eloquent models and used to create data with random or custom values. Laravel provides a powerful API for defining factories, allowing for easy generation of realistic data.

Laravel supports soft deletes, allowing records to be "deleted" without actually removing them from the database. When a model is soft-deleted, a deleted_at timestamp is set. To enable soft deletes, use the SoftDeletes trait in your model:

			  use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\SoftDeletes;
		  

Then, use the delete() method, which will set the deleted_at timestamp instead of actually removing the record.

In Laravel, models represent the data and business logic of your application. They are responsible for interacting with the database using Eloquent ORM. Each model corresponds to a database table, and through these models, you can perform operations like fetching, inserting, updating, and deleting records in the database.

Laravel is a powerful, open-source PHP framework designed for web application development. It follows the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture and provides a variety of tools and features, such as Eloquent ORM, Blade templating engine, and Artisan CLI. Laravel's goal is to make development faster and more enjoyable by providing a clean, elegant syntax and an extensive range of built-in functionality.

Laravel 8 introduced several exciting new features to enhance development. Some key updates include:

• Laravel Jetstream - A robust application scaffolding package.
• Model Directory - A new structure to organize models better.
• Migration Squashing - Combines old migrations into a single file.
• Improved Rate Limiting.
• Time Testing Helpers - New helpers for testing time-based logic.
• Dynamic Blade Components - A more flexible approach to Blade components.

To enable query logging in Laravel, follow these steps:

• DB::connection()->enableQueryLog(); - Enable query logging.
• $querieslog = DB::getQueryLog(); - Retrieve the query log.
• dd($querieslog); - Dump and die to view the log output.

This allows you to inspect the SQL queries being executed by your application.

Middleware in Laravel is a mechanism that filters HTTP requests entering your application. It acts as a bridge between the request and response cycle, allowing you to perform actions like authentication, logging, or modifying requests before they reach the controller. For example, the auth middleware ensures the user is authenticated before accessing certain routes.

Reverse routing in Laravel allows you to generate URLs based on route names or parameters. This technique helps avoid hardcoding URLs and makes them more maintainable. You can use reverse routing in two ways:

• Using named routes: Route::get('profile', 'UserController@profile')->name('profile');
• Using route parameters: {{ route('profile', ['id' => 1]) }}

Reverse routing makes your application more flexible and keeps URLs consistent.

The Service Container in Laravel is a powerful tool used for managing class dependencies and performing dependency injection. It acts as a central registry for your application's classes, allowing you to bind interfaces to implementations and resolve them automatically when needed. This makes your application more flexible and decouples class dependencies, improving maintainability and testability.

Authentication (Auth) in Laravel is a built-in system for verifying user credentials, typically using username and password. Laravel provides a simple and effective way to authenticate users via the auth facade. By using the auth helper function, you can easily implement login, registration, and user sessions in your application, ensuring secure access control.

In Laravel, facades offer a simple, static-like syntax for accessing services within the application. You can mock these facades during testing using the shouldReceive method. This method allows you to specify the expected method calls on the facade and simulate their behavior in your tests.
Example:

			Cache::shouldReceive('get')
				 ->once()
				 ->with('key')
				 ->andReturn('value');
		  

The composer.lock file in Laravel is automatically generated when you run composer install. It locks the dependencies of your project to a specific version, ensuring that everyone working on the project uses the exact same versions of each package. This prevents version conflicts and maintains consistency across different environments.

Dependency Injection (DI) in Laravel is a design pattern that allows you to inject dependencies (such as services, repositories, or other objects) into a class rather than having the class create them itself. The Laravel service container handles the automatic injection of dependencies, simplifying the process of managing class dependencies.
Example:

			public function __construct(UserRepository $repository) {
			  $this->repository = $repository;
			}
		  

In Laravel, skip() and take() are used for limiting the number of records retrieved in a query.

• skip() is used to skip a specific number of records from the result set.
• take() limits the number of records returned by the query.

Example:

			$users = User::skip(5)->take(5)->get();
		  

The Repository Pattern in Laravel provides a way to decouple the application's business logic from its data access logic. A repository acts as an intermediary between the application and the data source, abstracting away how data is retrieved and allowing the business logic to focus on processing the data, not the data storage specifics. This improves maintainability and testability.

The Singleton Design Pattern in Laravel ensures that a class has only one instance throughout the application. It is useful when you need a single point of access for a resource or service. Laravel achieves this by binding a class into the service container, ensuring that subsequent requests return the same instance.
Example:

			app()->singleton(SomeClass::class, function() {
			  return new SomeClass();
			});
		  

Queues in Laravel allow you to defer the processing of time-consuming tasks, such as sending emails, uploading files, or processing data. By offloading these tasks to a queue, your application can remain responsive, providing a better user experience. Queues can also be scaled across multiple servers, making it ideal for handling large workloads and ensuring tasks are processed asynchronously.

Tinker is an interactive shell in Laravel that allows you to interact with your application directly from the command line. It's part of Laravel's Artisan CLI and is a powerful tool for exploring and debugging your application. With Tinker, you can experiment with your models, run database queries, and test logic on the fly.
To start Tinker, run the command:

			php artisan tinker
		  

REPL stands for Read-Eval-Print-Loop, a simple interactive programming environment that allows you to enter code, evaluate it, and immediately see the result. It is used for experimenting with small code snippets and testing commands in real-time. Laravel Tinker is an example of a REPL that allows you to interact with your application directly in the terminal.

• Blade Templating
• Routing
• Eloquent ORM
• Middleware
• Artisan Command-Line Interface
• Security Features
• In-built Packages
• Caching
• Service Providers
• Facades
• Service Container

Lumen is a lightweight micro-framework built by the creator of Laravel. It is designed to build fast, small applications and APIs, leveraging the same components as Laravel, but optimized for performance. Lumen is perfect for building microservices or APIs where speed and minimal overhead are a priority.
Install Lumen with the following command:

			composer global require "laravel/lumen-installer=~1.0"
		  

If you need to stop an Artisan service, you can follow these steps:

1. Open Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + ESC), find the PHP process running the Artisan command, and end it.
2. Alternatively, try sending a termination signal with Ctrl + C in your command line.
3. Restart the server or application as needed after stopping the process.

Laravel offers a wide range of features for efficient web development, including:

• Eloquent ORM
• Blade Templating Engine
• Artisan Command-Line Interface
• Database Migration System

Additional features include:

• Modular Architecture & Libraries
• Supports MVC Architecture
• Security Features (Encryption, Hashing, CSRF Protection)
• Unit Testing
• Scalability and Robust APIs

Data validation in Laravel ensures that incoming data meets specific criteria before being used in the application. Laravel provides various methods to validate data, including custom Form Requests, validation rules, and manual validation.
Form Requests make validation easy by encapsulating the rules and logic inside dedicated classes, promoting reusability and clean code.

In Laravel, the @yield directive is used in Blade templates to define a section that child views can fill. It’s typically used in a master layout file, where specific sections are defined, and child views can provide their content for these sections. This helps you create flexible and reusable layouts.
Example:

			@yield('content')
		  

Laravel Nova is an elegant, customizable administration panel built for Laravel applications. It allows developers to manage database records using an intuitive interface and offers a range of built-in features like metrics, filters, and resource management, making it easier to manage data without writing additional code.

ORM (Object-Relational Mapping) in Laravel is a technique that allows developers to work with database records as if they were objects. The Eloquent ORM makes it easy to interact with the database, allowing you to query, insert, update, and delete records without writing raw SQL.

MVC stands for Model-View-Controller. Laravel follows the MVC architectural pattern to separate concerns within your application.

• Model: Represents the data and business logic of the application.
• View: Represents the user interface or the output the user sees.
• Controller: Handles requests, processes input, and returns the view or response.

Routing in Laravel refers to defining URL endpoints and associating them with specific controller actions or closures. Laravel makes defining routes simple, and they are defined in the /routes directory. Laravel supports different types of routes for handling web requests, API requests, console commands, and broadcasting channels.
Common route files include:

• web.php: Routes for web-based requests
• api.php: Routes for API-based requests
• console.php: Console-based commands
• channel.php: Broadcasting channels

Bundles, also known as packages, are used to group code and extend Laravel's functionality. They can include views, configuration, migrations, tasks, and more.

Seeding is the process of adding test data to the database for testing purposes. Developers use seeders to add dummy data to tables, helping detect bugs and improve performance.

Run the command: php artisan --version or php artisan -v

The GET method sends limited data in the URL, while the POST method sends larger amounts of data in the body of the request.

Some common Artisan commands:

• make:controller – Creates a new controller
• make:model – Creates a new model
• make:migration – Creates a new migration
• make:seeder – Creates a new seeder
• make:request – Creates a new request class
• make:command – Creates a new Artisan command
• make:mail – Creates a new email class
• make:channel – Creates a new broadcasting channel class

Laravel project structure includes:

• app: Application source code
• bootstrap: Bootstrap files for auto-loading
• config: Configuration files
• database: Database files (factories, migrations, seeds)
• public: Web entry point
• resources: Views, assets, language files
• routes: Route definitions
• storage: Cache, logs, session files
• test: Automated tests
• vendor: Composer dependency packages

Routes are created in the routes folder (web.php, api.php). Example for the homepage: Route::get('/', function () { return view('welcome'); });

Blade is Laravel's template engine. It uses a simple syntax and compiles to PHP for better performance. Blade files have the .blade.php extension.

Soft delete marks data as deleted by adding a "deleted" flag, allowing it to be restored later.

Localization is the process of serving content based on the user's preferred language.

Laravel uses the Illuminate\Http\Request class to interact with HTTP requests and session cookies. The request object is available using dependency injection.

Request validation can be done either through a validation class or directly in the controller. Example:

			public function store(Request $request) {
			  $validated = $request->validate([
				'title' => 'required|unique:posts|max:255',
				'body' => 'required',
			  ]);
			}
		  

Service providers register services, events, and dependencies before booting the application. They help inject services into the Laravel service container.

The register method binds classes to the service container, while the boot method runs after the container is bootstrapped and can set up routes or view composers.

You can create a middleware using the command:

php artisan make:middleware AllowSmallFile

Collections are an API wrapper for PHP array functions. They simplify array manipulations, like filtering and mapping, and are often used in Eloquent results.

Queues handle time-consuming tasks in the background, keeping the application responsive. They are useful for tasks like sending emails or processing jobs.

Accessors modify data after retrieving it from the database, while mutators modify data before saving it to the database.

In Eloquent, relationships define how models are related. Types include:

• One To One
• One To Many
• Many To Many
• Has Many Through
• Polymorphic
• Many To Many Polymorphic

Eloquent is Laravel's ORM, providing a simple and elegant interface for interacting with the database using PHP models, making complex queries easier to write and understand.

Throttling limits the number of requests from a client to prevent abuse. In Laravel, use middleware like this:

		  Route::middleware('auth:api', 'throttle:60,1')->group(function () {
			Route::get('/user', function () {
			  // 
			});
		  });
		  

Facades provide a static interface to services in Laravel's service container. Example:

		  use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Cache;
		  Route::get('/cache', function () {
			return Cache::get('key');
		  });
		  

Events decouple various parts of the application. For instance, when an order is shipped, an event can trigger a listener to send a notification. You can create events and listeners using Artisan commands:

php artisan make:event OrderShipped

Laravel uses the Monolog library for logging, allowing log messages to be sent to files, system logs, or external services like Slack. Multiple log channels can be configured.

1. Why is Laravel used? Laravel simplifies web application development by providing tools for routing, authentication, and more.
2. What is MVC in Laravel? MVC (Model-View-Controller) separates the application into three components: Model (data), View (UI), and Controller (logic).
3. What is namespace in Laravel? Namespaces organize classes to avoid name conflicts.
4. Does Laravel support Bootstrap? Yes, Laravel supports Bootstrap.
5. Name the aggregate methods of the Query Builder. Methods include count(), max(), min(), avg(), and sum().
6. How is a Blade template file identified? Blade files have the extension .blade.php and are stored in the resources/views folder.
7. Name the ORM used in Laravel. Laravel uses Eloquent as its ORM.
8. What is Vapor? Vapor is a serverless deployment platform for Laravel powered by AWS Lambda.
9. Name some common tools used to send emails in Laravel. Tools include SwiftMailer, SMTP, Mailgun, Mailtrap, and more.
10. What is Forge? Forge is a server management and deployment service for Laravel.
11. Name a few competitors of Laravel. Competitors include CodeIgniter, Symfony, Yii, CakePHP, and more.